Badenoch: Starmer’s refusal to back US strikes a ‘pure political calculation’
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has accused Sir Keir Starmer of initially refusing to allow the US to use its military bases for strikes on Iran for “political” reasons rather than legal ones.
In a speech at Policy Exchange, the centre-right think tank, Badenoch said the UK’s response to the conflict in the Middle East had been “so weak” due to party politics within Labour.
Starmer held that the US was prevented from using military bases including Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands for strikes on Iran on Saturday due to international law.
A request for its use was later granted on Sunday for the bases to be used for “specific and limited defensive purposes”.
But Badenoch hit back at Starmer’s claims, linking them to “separatism” in the UK and failed integration policy.
“Across the UK there are groups whose political loyalties when it comes to conflicts in the Middle East do not align with British national interests,” the Tory leader said.
“These are people who Labour sees as their voters because without them, they cannot stay in power.
“This is not international law or principle, it is pure partisan political calculation from a Labour Party that has surrendered its right to govern our country, and it is the reality of decades of failed integration policy.”
Badenoch and Farage attack Starmer
Badenoch rejected comparisons between the ongoing conflict with Iran to the war with Iraq in 2003.
She said it was “clear” that the Iranian regime had the intention of developing an arsenal of nukes and attack the UK, adding that the government can’t hope “the problem will go away”.
Earlier on Monday, Reform UK’s Nigel Farage said the UK’s response to the conflict in the Middle East put the special relationship with the US at jeopardy.
His comments came shortly before it was reported that President Trump said he was “very disappointed” in Starmer over a rejection for the US to use UK military bases.
“I do believe that Starmer’s actions don’t just threaten the special relationship, but probably he has posed or did pose a major threat to Nato,” Farage said.
“There are of course big risks with the American actions and Israeli actions that were taken over the course of the weekend, but equally enormous risks in doing nothing, in allowing Iran to go on funding these extremist terrorist organisations, attacking shipping, and doing everything they can to build a nuclear bomb.
“I do believe the American president and the Israelis are right in what they’re doing and I find the actions of our Prime Minister, or the inactions perhaps I should say, frankly pathetic.”